


War!Drabbles

by Sofie K Werkers (femgeek)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-10-01
Updated: 2002-12-01
Packaged: 2017-10-13 22:37:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 8
Words: 2,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/142486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/femgeek/pseuds/Sofie%20K%20Werkers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of drabbles, all set in the same universe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Requiem

**Author's Note:**

> This whole universe is Jeanne's fault. Also thanks to elfie for encouragement and support.

Three years into the war, and Marcus thinks, not for the first time, that he should've done what was expected of him and joined Voldemort's side.

He's on the winning side, but it doesn't feel like it. He hears the news of his friends' deaths, but he's not allowed to mourn them, because that would be seen as a sign that he isn't trustworthy, that he's still a true Slytherin. He hears about Terence's death, and an hour later he's bent over maps and codes and strategies.

He isn't allowed to mourn the others, either, because despite everything he's given up, this is still not _his_ side. Percy Weasley dies at the hands of an Auror, yet Marcus is the one Oliver Wood glares at throughout the funeral. Seamus Finnigan, one of his best field operatives, simply doesn't come back from a mission one day. Marcus knows that anything he says to Dean Thomas will only get him a fist in the face, so he says nothing.

He stops going to funerals when he starts thinking too much about his own, which will no doubt be soon, quick, and unattended.

The Weasley twins go missing on their twenty-third birthday. Only one of the bodies turns up, a month later, and Marcus realises he'll never have a chance to learn the difference between them now. He supposes it doesn't really matter in the end, and toasts them anyway, in a Muggle pub somewhere in London, where nobody knows him.

And still, suddenly, a voice from behind him: "Buy you a drink?" He turns, and it takes him a few moments before he recognises the man standing there as Lee Jordan, older, more scarred, and his famous dreadlocks replaced by the crew cut they're all sporting these days.

"Sure. Have a seat."


	2. Perspective

When Lee walks into the pub and sees Flint sitting at the bar, he realises that Fate has a rather nasty sense of humour.

Flint has his back towards him, but he recognises him immediately. He looks the exactly the same as the last time Lee saw him: back straight, neck and shoulders tense, every inch the Quidditch Captain. Lee wonders if Flint would recognise him, if he looks at all like the fifth year Quidditch commentator being kept in check by the teachers.

The last time Lee saw Professor McGonagall — still "Professor McGonagall" even though she hasn't taught a class in more than two years — was when she asked him to join the Order.

"You have a keen eye, Jordan, and if there's one thing we need right now, it's information. You'd be very useful to the Order."

So he joined, because it was the Right Thing to do, because he couldn't just sit back and watch his friends go to war. He does what he's good at, watching and reporting, calling things as he sees them no matter whether people liked what he said. He always has, and they rarely do.

He called Flint on his faults, and earning himself the eternal hatred of most of Slytherin House, but he never cared. The Slytherins always claimed Lee was biased against Flint, but what Flint never realised — what none of the Slytherins ever realised — was that it wasn't about House rivalry, but about the fact that Flint was a great player and wouldn't need to cheat.

All of which, of course, is now in the past. There hasn't been a professional Quidditch match in three years, and even the Hogwarts matches are cancelled more often than not. Flint isn't a Chaser anymore, and Lee is no longer a commentator, and when he thinks of Flint, he thinks "chief strategist", and not "cheater".

War tends to break things down to their basics, and the bottom line about both of them is the same: they're soldiers. They are alive in the midst of death, and fighting on the same side, and Lee has long ago come to the conclusion that there's no use in suspecting anyone of treason. If they are, they are, and that's the end of it whether you suspect them or not.

Which, ultimately, is why he finds himself walking up to the bar. "Buy you a drink?"


	3. Personal

Marcus is bent over maps and charts, trying to find a way to get closer to the Death Eater stronghold, when Dean comes in. "News on Lee Jordan."

He looks up. "Where?"

"Bole," Dean says, and that's all he needs to say.

He tells himself it's because Jordan is one of the few people with field experience he has around, and he can't send rookies out against Bole. He tells himself he's just doing his job. He tells himself he'd do this for anyone else.

And he would, but slitting Bole's throat, he knows this at least is very personal.


	4. Pretty Boy

"Fucking Gryffindor pretty boy" Flint used to call him, growling at him in a voice that made Lee bite his lip until it bled, and tugging his dreadlocks, just hard enough to hurt.

He's not that pretty anymore.

He's barely twenty-four, and he walks onto what used to be the Quidditch field to teach the new recruits how to survive. They look at him and they see a veteran, weary and battle-scarred and old. He looks at them and he sees children, some of them barely sixteen and volunteers, others eighteen and drafted into this mess. And every two months, he sends them off to die.

 _When I was their age,_ he thinks, but doesn't finish his thought.

When he was sixteen, the most eventful thing in his life was being pressed against the wall of the broom shed by the captain of the Slytherin Quidditch team, and being fucked hard and long and thorough. Best sex of his life, he realises now. Of course, now it's too late, because he's not pretty anymore, and he's not a boy anymore, and his dreads are just a vague memory now.

 _When I was their age,_ he thinks, _I was fucking happy._


	5. Sometimes

Sometimes he catches himself looking at Jordan, sees him reaching for his dreads, fingers grasping into thin air.

Sometimes, he wants to tell Jordan to grow them back, because he's not going out into the field again, so practicality isn't an issue anymore. Except, of course, _Why would I care?_ He remembers how Jordan used to gasp when he pulled them. Seven years ago, but he remembers every detail.

Sometimes he wants to run his hand over Jordan's head, see what it feels like now. Except, of course, Jordan still flinches when he's touched, and Marcus hates Bole for that.


	6. Time

Marcus started smoking before the war, but Lee didn't start until after Bole. That's how Marcus thinks of time: Before The War, Before Bole, After Bole. He doesn't know when he started thinking of Lee as "Lee" rather than "Jordan", but Lee started calling him "Marcus" soon after, somewhere around the time he started stealing his cigarettes.

It's not easy to get cigarettes, but Marcus doesn't care. Enough people owe him favours, and they're happy enough that all he asks of them is that they bring back a carton of cigarettes every time they're in a Muggle area. So he doesn't care that Lee keeps stealing them, if only because now he's not the only one taking smoke breaks anymore. They're not allowed to smoke inside, with all the vital paperwork lying around, so they just stand outside in companionable silence.

They spend most of their time in Marcus' small office, bent over maps and charts, and only really leave the room for meals, out in the Great Hall, and they usually talk work even then. Neville Longbottom joins them sometimes, when he can get away from fixing up the rookies — ex-rookies by then — and berates them both for "looking like Snape on a really, really bad day, and are those nicotine stains on your fingers, Lee?" and then shakes his head at Marcus and mutters something about how corruption and filthy habits.

Lee usually goes to his room to sleep, but Marcus only gets a few hours every night anyway, so he just naps on the couch. Sometimes, when things are frantic and they spend two or three full days in the office, Lee collapses on the couch for a while. Sometimes, Lee tells him to go get some sleep already, and how long has it been since Marcus slept in an actual bed, anyway?

It's on one of those days that Marcus wakes up to find Lee asleep on the couch with him, half on top of his legs, and he thinks about getting up, so Lee can have the whole couch, because he doesn't look very comfortable, but every time he tries to move, Lee makes a little protesting sound in his sleep. He watches Lee for a while, thinking about how Lee still flinches every time someone touches him, and then realises Lee doesn't flinch anymore when Marcus touches him. Eventually, he just goes back to sleep, and when he wakes up again, he's lying on his back with Lee's head on his stomach.

They don't talk about it, but they don't talk about most things. They just go on with their lives, but Marcus finds himself touching Lee a lot more than he used to. Just casual touching, a hand on his shoulder, brushing his hand when handing him a cigarette, and once he gives runs his hand over Lee's head when he's sleeping on the couch. Sometimes, Lee leans against him as they're leaning over the desk.

Marcus supposes it's a start.


	7. Focus

Lee remembers, clear as day, the Christmas break of his fifth year. Before Bole, before the war, before everything else, there were two weeks with no one else around, and even the fact that he was away from his family and friends on Christmas didn't dampen his holiday spirit.

He spent the two weeks in a daze as they took full advantage of the emtpy dorms, sneaking in and out every night. On Christmas Eve he fell asleep in Flint's bed and didn't wake up until the early morning. He remembers there was still a fire going in the fireplace, which meant Flint must've woken up during the night and not woken him up, and Lee really didn't want to think about what _that_ meant.

With time, he's perfected the art of Not Thinking about things. Fifth year, the twins, Bole, Marcus, he can ignore everything as long as he concentrates on something else. It's what made him the perfect spy — he could sit absolutely still for hours on end, focussing on nothing but his target.

He's not allowed to go out in the field anymore, and it's hard to really focus on maps, so instead, he focusses on Marcus.


	8. War

It's the worst battle yet, and losses are heavy on both sides. Derrick, Crabbe, Cho Chang, Katie Bell, the list goes on. Marcus holes himself up in his office for two days, going over plans and tactics and trying to see where he went wrong. Eventually, he falls asleep on his desk, waking up with Lee standing over him.

"Go to bed."

"I can't. I ..." gesturing towards the maps. "Thrirty-seven deaths, Lee."

"It's a war, Marcus. People die."

"And I'm supposed to make sure they _don't_."

"It doesn't work that way. Go to _bed_. They won't come back to life just because you collapse of exhaustion. You'll get another chance. The war isn't over yet."

"Yeah, I guess," and he lets Lee pull him to his feet and walk him to his room.

He hasn't actually been in his room for weeks, and before that even just to change clothes. He sits down heavily on the bed, and looks at Lee.

"Do you think we're safe here?"

Lee shrugs. "The one certainty in war is that in an hour, maybe two, you either still be alive or you'll be dead. That goes for the people outside, but for us as well."

He doesn't know what to say at that, so he says nothing, but simply gets up and searches for the bottle of whiskey he vaguely remembers putting in the back of his night stand, months ago. He manages to find it, and two glasses, and holds up the bottle at Lee. "You want?"

"Sure." So Marcus pours them both a triple shot, freezes some water from the tap with his wand, adds ice cubes, and hands Lee one of the glasses. It's a comforting ritual.

They sit down on the bed, side by side, almost touching.

"How did you do it? Go out there every day and ..."

"Kill or be killed?"

"Yeah."

Lee shrugs. "You do what you have to do to survive, I guess. You've done it yourself.

Marcus's jaw clenches. "That was different, though."

"Because he used to be your friend?"

He grins, a little bitter. "Bole didn't have any friends. He was a bastard even at school. Ter ... Ter used to make me sleep in the bed between his and Bole's, because I was the only one who wasn't terrified of that fucking psycho." He stops, a little abruptly, and looks down at his drink.

"He knew," Lee says. "Bole, I mean. He knew about ... about what we did, at school. Said that since I kept going back for more, I should enjoy ... him."

"Well. He's got a point," wincing, because that came out all wrong, but Lee seems to know what he meant anyway.

"There's a difference between rough and rape, Marcus."

"Is there?"

Lee's answer is to crush his lips against Marcus's, and mutter something that sounds vaguely affirmative. Marcus wants to say something, ask something, slow down, but Lee is insistent, and in the end Marcus just gives in. Lee is familiar in a way Marcus feels he shouldn't be, like putting on his old school robes. Familiar, but out of place, out of time. Familiar like a memory, except this isn't then, it's now, and it's real.

So Marcus concentrates on the now, on the differences. He memorises the scars on Lee's body, the way Lee's hands feel on his back, the raspy, slightly beard burn-like feeling of running his hands over Lee's head. He tries to be gentle, careful, _something_ , but Lee won't let him, and it's been so long, and it's over so quick.

Outside, the war goes on.


End file.
